


Fifty

by johnnygossamer



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnygossamer/pseuds/johnnygossamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean makes it to fifty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifty

Fifty.

Dean makes it to fifty. And that’s a damn long time, for a hunter. John was fifty-two when he sold his soul, and he could’ve lived longer. They both knew it, but neither ever mentioned it. Dean would never be sitting on the porch of their cabin, quietly looking out into the woods, if John had made it past fifty-two.

It’s eerie to think about. Dean prefers not to. Fifty years, he thinks, and the cold condensation on the sides of the beer bottle doesn’t feel any different than it did when he was sixteen. Sam stands by the horizon of trees some twenty yards off, arms stretched up in the air. “Sun salutations,” he had told Dean one groggy morning, but Dean has no idea if it’s morning or evening. There’s no actual time at the cabin, no sense of urgency or age. Just the two of them, now, and the sun. He never asks Sam if it ever salutes back.

He doesn’t pay attention to the mirror in the bathroom. There’s a man that lives in there, with murky, faded green eyes, crinkled eyes, that flicker and squint more than they should. A man with silver hair at his temples, a man who still manages to stay clean-shaven thanks to all the times he’s shaven blind in the backseat of the Impala on nights they couldn’t afford motel rooms. Dean doesn’t trust the man, doesn’t trust the open, hurt look he gives him every morning. He’s Sam’s reflection, really—Dean only sees him smile when Sam does.

When Dean finally hears his name called, after what must be the fifth time, emphasized by the crunch of broken branches under Sam’s bare feet in front of him, Dean snaps back into reality. His brother’s finished giving salutations and goodnights to the sun, the sky dark by now. Pinpricks in the dark blanket above keep the night still alive, and Sam looks down at Dean with a quiet hesitancy, as if Dean’s momentary catatonia is anything to worry about.

(It isn’t, he insists later, and Sam only gives him locked lips.)

The beer’s gone warm in his palms and he drains it out on the ground by his feet, watching the local anthill go stir-crazy from the smell. Sam comes back from inside with fresh bottles, cool and crisp against Dean’s dry mouth, and they sit together beneath the stars, just drinking, like they always have. Fireflies blink on and off near the ground and if Sam’s joints didn’t creak so often Dean imagines that he’d run around and chase them, bubbling laughter filling the night air.

For now he leans against Sam, sturdy arms supporting each other, and the old acoustic guitar they found in the garage finds its way into Dean’s lap, and he smiles as his fingers settle familiarly over the strings. In attempts to woo females in his younger escapades, Dean had taken up playing guitar a long, long time ago, and nobody but a ten-year-old Sammy had ever heard him play the intro to Stairway to Heaven. Now the wood settles in his cradling grip easily, and he strums some mindless chords as Sam hums along. They make their own music, these days, and it suits them just fine.

Fifty ain’t so bad.


End file.
